cooks river water wise

Black and white drawing of bird on river with fish in its mouth

The Cooks River Alliance and the ECCNSW have run activities, workshops, and events for culturally diverse communities in the Cooks River Catchment.

Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Nepalese communities have participated in a clean up day at a local park, planted trees, gone on a bus tour and explored the catchment’s bushland, and learnt about how we can all be water wise creating a healthier catchment.

The first Water Wise workshop was displayed in the exhibition “People.Water.Connections” at Bankstown Art Centre. This exhibition celebrated connections to water and rivers and acknowledged culturally diverse practices of water management and conservation.

You can see our photo gallery and videos in language here:

The Cooks River is a 23 kilometre long urban waterway. The River starts at Graf Park, Yagoona and travels north-west through to Chullora. The River then turns south-west before flowing into Botany Bay at Kyeemagh, next to Kingsford Smith airport.

As the River makes its way from Graf Park to Kyeemagh, it is joined by Greenacre Creek, Cox Creek, Cup and Saucer Creek, Wolli Creek, Bardwell Creek, Alexandria Canal (Sheas Creek) and Muddy Creek.

The Cooks River catchment is highly urbanised and serves as part of a stormwater system for the 100 square kilometres of watershed. From south Strathfield to Canterbury, the River is a concrete channel and many of its tributaries have also been converted to concrete or brick-lined channels.

2 people holding a map of the Cooks River and marking spots

black and white drawing of sacred clay vessel for water by Tania Obeid

The shared path and parks along the river are used for recreational activities, and the tidal sections support significant areas of mangroves, salt marsh and bird, and fish life.

Wolli Creek flows through important remnant bushland, providing the most significant contiguous wild space in the region.

For more information go to cooksriver.org.au